Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received the following letter from Senator Watt:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Prime Minister's statement that "It'd be very familiar, I think, to many, the reopening plan to get Australia open by Christmas of this year"—made in October 2020 in relation to Christmas 2020.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers for today's discussion. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There could not be a more important day to be having this discussion on this matter of public importance. Today has been another heartbreaking day for Australia, with 919 cases in New South Wales, 45 new cases in Victoria and nine cases in the ACT. Unfortunately, these numbers have set a new record for daily COVID-19 infections in Australia to this time. It is devastating. I was up in my office a short time ago and I heard that there have been two more deaths in New South Wales. This has affected me, and I'm sure that Senator O'Neill, coming from New South Wales, would be feeling this as well. A young mother in her 30s has died and her husband is in the ICU. This is devastating for our country.

There have been too many deaths. Too many people haven't been able to have their vaccinations. We've had a government and a Prime Minister that are scathing of anyone who would scrutinise their lack of commitment and urgency, when they knew, from what was happening overseas, that there was a crisis coming to Australian shores. They did nothing to ensure that they had an adequate supply of vaccines to keep all Australians safe. We've heard in this place today, as we heard yesterday and we heard on Monday, the tragedy of those families who are trying to seek out and find access to a vaccine. It's devastating—absolutely devastating. There have been 76 deaths since this outbreak began. That's almost one person a day dying in this country as a result of failing to have access to a vaccination or, having had a vaccination, still, unfortunately, dying.

We have a Prime Minister who has demonstrated every day this week in the other place, as have government senators here, that he does not like and will not accept any scrutiny of his failures. Senators have come into this chamber day after day this week to try to justify why they should be so bolshie about the fact that so many vaccines have been rolled out in the last week or so. I'm sorry, you cannot rewrite Australian history. As Prime Minister of this country, you have fallen at the first hurdle, which was to ensure the safety and the health of every Australian. That was your first job—to protect people's health and to protect the economy. Both of those are critically important to every Australian.

But you also have failed under the Constitution. We know, and you know as well, that it was your government's responsibility to ensure that we had safe and secure quarantine for people in this country and for people coming home. We've also learnt today that, in regard to the Ruby Princess crisis, the federal government and Mr Morrison wiped their hands and took no responsibility. Don't look at the Commonwealth government! No, no, no! The report that clearly lays the blame partly on the federal government was in fact hidden away, but it's been uncovered. This is the same federal government and the same chief health adviser that, at the time when cases from the Ruby Princess broke out on the north-west coast in my home state of Tasmania—which our whip, Senator Urquhart, would remember very clearly, coming from that community—made allegations that there was an outbreak because of a party held by doctors from that very hospital, the Burnie hospital. These are the same people who come in here day after day, trying to rewrite what has really happened in this country, and that is that we've had a Prime Minister who has fallen at every single hurdle when providing security of Australians' health, security of their jobs and security of our economy.

We don't forget these things, any more than Tasmanians forget that it was their chief health adviser, now the secretary of the Department of Health, who, at the time, made those outlandish allegations about hardworking, dedicated health workers and doctors at the Burnie hospital.

You can come in here each and every day and have speaker after speaker in this debate try and rewrite history and blame the Labor Party for all the lockdowns, but what have we seen this week? The Prime Minister, who does not like any scrutiny—no scrutiny for him and no responsibility—has said: 'There's no crisis here. Look the other way.' Well, we're not going to allow that to happen because we are going to remind you each and every day of the warnings that you had from what was happening overseas and that you failed to protect older Australians in this country. We still have the same health minister, who has failed again at every hurdle to ensure the health and safety of Australians in this country. Every single issue and crisis that we have had in aged care we still have, with aged-care workers not being vaccinated. We still have a crisis in the disability sector. We still don't have workers fully vaccinated in either aged care or disability care.

We heard today from Senator O'Neill about the travesty that is happening in the western New South Wales community, which I'm very familiar with, and the crisis there with First Nations people. This is outrageous. The warnings were there. What's happened from the health minister? Absolutely nothing. It's so typical of this government to say: 'It's not our fault. We are rolling out the vaccines, so everything is alright.' Let's not worry about those people who are dying! Every day there's an Australian who is dying needlessly. It really doesn't matter how old they were—if they were in their 70s, 80s, 90s or in their 20s or 30s—these deaths could have been avoided if this government and the Prime Minister had done their job and ensured we sourced enough vaccines. That has been the fundamental problem and why we have gone into lockdowns. It's why Queensland has gone into lockdown. It's why New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria have. The mental health impact on our community will last for a long, long time. We won't see the full impact of that for some time.

We raised our concerns today in this place in relation to the lack of vaccine doses available to children from 12 upwards. These include children with disabilities. Then there are those teachers that are teaching children with severe disabilities. I know only too well of a case in Orange where the special education teacher tried to get a vaccination. What was she told all last week? She was told, 'You will have to wait until next year.' That is outrageous. We should be doing more.

The Prime Minister of this country has failed, as I said, from the outset. He's failed to take responsibility. He doesn't like to have any scrutiny. This is not going to go away. After every death that we have in this country we should be reminding ourselves and the government, particularly the Minister for Health and Aged Care and the Prime Minister himself, that we should have prevented these. We could have prevented these. We've failed in our duty of care. That's what this Prime Minister has done. He should be looking at his own performance, his own failings, instead of looking, as he normally does, to blame everyone else—'There's no crisis. I'm not taking any responsibility. If I keep saying that over and over again, I know I'm going to believe it and maybe the Australian people will believe it.' Well, I don't believe they do believe it. My office has been inundated because of the concerns about the economy in the tourism sector, hospitality and every sector. We are being hit by the fact that we've had three states in full lockdown—Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Now the ACT is. That's having an impact on my own community in Tasmania. We feel it. We want to get out of these lockdowns. We want to get back to our Australian way of life. But that responsibility still rests with the Prime Minister, who isn't up to the job of leading this country.